“How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst
weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the
heights of theclouds;
I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to
the sidesof the pit” –
(Is.14:12-15).

“And the devil, taking him up into an
high mountain, shewed unto him all the kndgdoms of the world in a moment of
time. And the devil said unto him, all this power will I give thee, and the
glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and
said unto him, Get thee behind me Satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” – (Luke 4:5-8).

The worship of the serpent can be traced in almost
every religion throughout ancient Asia, Europe, Africa and America and continues worldwide today. The progress of the
serpent from Eden to serpent worship worldwide shows us how real and
powerful Satan is. How an object of abhorrence could be exalted into an object
of veneration shows us the subtilty of our arch enemy. Above all things Satan
desires the worship that belongs to Jesus Christ and the Father only. He
corrupts the true faith of Christianity by warring against the truth and
bringing error into the darkened minds of sinful man that they might be even
more debased and confounded and darkened. “Because
that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful:
but became vain in their imagination, and
their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they
became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made
like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four – footed beasts, and creeping thing. Who changedthe truth of God into a lie, and worshipped
and served the creature more than theCreator,
who is blessed forever. Amen” – (Rom.1:21,22,23,25). Notice ‘creeping
things’ and that means serpents. Idols of serpents have been worshipped
worldwide since the Garden of Eden where the serpent- Satan made his entrance
upon the human family.

Elevating himself into an object of worship has always been Satan’s most
cherishedgoal. It was that which he
tempted the Lord Jesus with on the mountain –“Allthese things will I give thee, if thou
wilt fall down and worship me” – (Mt.4:9). We should not therefore be surprised,
that the same wicked being who had the presumption to make such a proposal to
the Son of God, shall have the audacity to insinuate himself into the worship
of men. His most audacious, bold and arrogant act was to make the serpent an
image of worship. Man, who had become so darkened in his sins, would now worship
the symbol of Satan – the serpent. That the most venomous and loathed creature
on earth would now be worshipped as God, shows us the total blindness and
darkness of the human heart and mind. Yes, “their
foolish heart was darkened” and they became fools.

And dragon worship and serpent worship are
one and the same. For Satan is called in God’s book of truth – the devil and
the dragon and the serpent – (Rev.12:9). The dragon is just a giant serpent
made more ferocious and evil. In China alone, a nation of over one billion people, the
dragon has been worshipped as God for many centuries. Instead of worshipping
the only true God and Creator revealed in God’s book of truth, the Bible, they
worship the creature instead- “Who
changed the truth of God into a lie, andworshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.” And the
creature is Satan, once known as Lucifer, one of God’s highest created beings
in the universe. He has delighted in taking the serpent, the symbol of himself
and making it into an object of worship and idolatry. He is the power behind
all idolatry.

We see Satan erecting idols of the serpent to
be worshipped worldwide, which was the stumbling block that was fatal to man.
By so doing, he receives the worship he so much desired from the beginning. But
it also reminds him of his victory over Adam which greatly gratifies him. It
was Satan’s choice to possess the body of a serpent to tempt the first man and
by the worship of the serpent he should continue to fall.

The most populous country that worships the
serpent is India with over one billion people and 80% Hindu. The
King Cobra is worshipped in India and is the largest poisonous serpent in the world,
up to 18 ft. long. It’s image is in their temples and celebrated in myth and
legend and seen in numerous images of Hindu worship. The King Cobra is
worshipped particularly on the ‘Festival of Serpents’.Live snakes are worshipped on this day of
celebration- they are considered to be godlike. Their god Shiva is depicted
with a cobra wrapped around his neck. Offerings are made to the snakes and pots
of milk and flowers are placed next to their holes. Cobras are bathed in milk
and offered rice.

Cobras are hooded serpents and can squirt
poison several feet directly at the eyes of the victims and cause blindness. On
the back of it’s hood it has a mark like a pair of spectacles or eyeglasses.
And it sometimes is called ‘The Spectacled Cobra’. Can you not see how Satan
blinds their minds and ‘hoodwinks’ and deceives the people of India? “But if our
gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel ofChrist,who is the image of
God, should shine unto them”- (2 Cor. 4:3,4).

Just before the great tribulation Satan is
cast out of heaven along with his fallen angels that followed his rebellion
against God. “And the great dragon was
cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the
whole world; he was cast outinto the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him” – (Rev.12:9). And Satan has
his man prepared for this hour – the Beast. Satan’s man, also called the Antichrist,
is the last emperor on earth before Jesus comes back to rule the earth in
righteousness as King of Kings forever. (Rev.13:2) says – “And the dragon gave him his power and his seat andgreat authority.” The Beast accepts what
Jesus rejected – the power and glory of ruling the world - but he must worship
Satan. The serpent Satan gets what he has been coveting after for thousands of
years – the whole world worships him through his beastly man. (But the great tribulation
saints will not worship him or his image and they will be martyred.) “And they worshipped the dragon which gave
power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast…” – (vs.4). This is the
serpent’s supreme moment. This is the one goal he has been striving for
centuries – to be like God.

It is written of the Beast “And that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition: Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or
that is worshipped: so thathe as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God” – (2 Thes.2:3,4). The Beast will be possessed by
Satan himself, as Judas was, and you can see that the character of the Beast is
exactly like the proud, exalted character of Satan. The serpent’s desire to be
worshipped will be fulfilled in the Beast. When people worldwide worship the Beast,
they will also be worshipping the dragon who possesses the Beast.

And then when his short temporal rule of
power and glory is over, the Lord Jesus comes back with His army from heaven
and defeats the serpent at Armageddon – (Rev.19:11-21). The Beast and his
religious False Prophet are thrown into the lake of fire and the serpent into
the bottomless pit prison for a thousand years. Then shall be fulfilled God’s
prophecy spoken to the Serpent in Eden – “And I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruisehis heel” – (Gen.3:15). It was a prophecy that includes both
comings of Christ and the final rebellion of Satan at the end of the millennium
– called the battle of Gog and Magog – (Rev.20:7-9). This is the final crushing
of the serpent’s head – “And the devil
that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the
beast and the falseprophet are, and
shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” – (Rev.20:10).

Christ came the first time to be born as a man
of the virgin woman Mary and to be the Savior of the world and to save his
people from their sins and to offer us eternal life. This was accomplished on
the tree of Calvary because sin and the Serpent started in the tree in
Eden. Sin started with a tree and sin is forgiven by Christ
on the tree-cross – (I Pet.2:24). Calvary is the
place of the skull and there was the
beginning of the end for the bruising of the serpent’s head. The second coming of Christ at the battle of Armageddon
crushes the serpent’s head even further and Christ casts him in the bottomless
pit prison for a thousand years. The
serpent’s worship as God is ended.

Like Napoleon, the Serpent has his moment of
glory and the world worships him but then he meets his Waterloo at the battle of Armageddon and is crushed by the
one whose right it is to rule the earth – the Lord Jesus. And like Napoleon who
was exiled on the island of Elba and escaped to raise up another army to be finally
and forever defeated, the Serpent is also released from his prison after a 1000
years and raises another army and attacks Christ at Jerusalem again. Fire comes down from God out of heaven and
burns up the serpent’s army called Gog and Magog. Then the serpent is thrown
into the lake of fire forever. The prophecy
of Christ’s heel crushing the head of the serpent is now final and complete.
Christ has put a final end both to sin and the Serpent.

But the day of God’s grace and longsuffering
and mercy is still with us. Are you saved from your sins and hell by the Lord
Jesus? Do not spurn the love of God in his beloved Son on the cross. Repent of
your sins and turn by faith to Christ for forgiveness of sins. He alone has the
power to wash away your sins in His precious blood. “And the blood ofJesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin” – (I Jn.1:7). “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent
his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” – (I
Jn.4:9,10). Do not reject God’s Son. Don’t be religious – be saved – be born
again. Through Jesus Christ you can conquer sin and the Serpent and hell, the
second death, and have eternal life. Through Christ you also can crush the
Serpent’s head and worship God in spirit and truth.